U.S. Army Issues Android Dev Kit

First reported in The Register, the United States Army is getting ready to issue a development kit in July to create applications for soldiers to use in combat situations.

“Using the Mobile/Handheld CE Product Developers Kit, we’re going to allow the third-party developers to actually develop capabilities that aren’t stovepiped,” said Lt-Col Mark Daniels, who is in charge of the Joint Battle Command-Platform (JBC-P), the military-grade Android device that will be issued to soldiers. The device, which is expected to be issued to Army and Marine ground units beginnng in 2013, will initially come with Army-created “stock” applications, on which third-parties will be able to develop additional functionality.

According to the report, the base software will be designed to run on a variety of Android variants, and the hardware will either be an exisiting government phone, or possibly an “off-the-shelf” model with a rugged casing. Networking will be provided by exisiting military radios, and the devices are expected to tie into exsisting systems installed in vehicles and headquarters operations.

“That’s going to allow us to be interoperable across the entire family of systems, which would include the platforms, the aviation, the logistics community, the tanks, the Bradleys, the handhelds,” Daniels said.

Just imagine what they may do with their time already. I have the upmost respect for service members of the Armed Forces regardless of MOS, rank, or service branch but how many times have you seen the videos on Youtube of soldiers doing things they weren’t supposed to?

I can only imagine that devices in-field for soldiers running on Android would have military-level encryption and security measures to prevent such a thing. I’m also sure they would be very closely monitored regarding any data traffic or content. At least that’s what I would hope for.